Month: October 2015

Every time I come across a story about domestic violence there are always the well-meaning, but horribly misguided folks commenting on how to avoid becoming a victim. In this post I highlight some I’ve seen today and explain why this advice is not only wrong but potentially fatal.

1) “get a gun”, I assure you my abuser would have used it on me. I wouldn’t have been able to “hide it sum place your man won’t see” because I was a literal prisoner in his home. Good luck me trying to hide anything. I tried. I wasn’t even hiding a weapon. I was hiding a picture of my best friend because I wasn’t allowed friends. He had a knife he used to threatened me with. A gun in the house would have ended with me dead.

-“Report it to the authorities and then leave the state”- Cops don’t take this shit seriously, and how exactly is a victim of domestic violence supposed to just up and move when she’s more than likely completely dependent on the abuser. He made it so precisely so she can’t leave. Good luck trying to leave if you have children with your abuser too.

– “if you had watched him closely you would have noticed the red flags”- yes, because abusers upon meeting their future victims introduce themselves as “hi, I will eventually change my personality once I know I have you and then I will beat/rape/torture you. Is this ok with you?”. Like you people really think we just go into this shit knowing?

And yeah, ok. Let’s see, little girls are socialized from birth to never speak up, to never say no, if a boy pulls our hair that just means “he likes you”. That jealousy just means he cares. So after a lifetime of all these messages you expect us to just be able to leave? You made us into easy targets and then scold us for not knowing how to respond.

If we are lucky enough to leave, we get asked, “why couldn’t you work it out?”, “I’m sure it wasn’t all bad”, “he seemed like such a great guy”, “but aren’t you worried about not having a father for your baby?”, “you’re so selfish”, “you probably did something to deserve it”. Either way, the blame always lands on the victim. I’m tired of it.

This is by no means a complete list. These are the ones I saw today. I’ll probably add more to this as time goes on.
What bad advice have you received after leaving your abusive partner?